Will Etna Township voters empower two more years of circus style meetings and lawsuits or begin to clean up the mess? Most residents I have spoken with blame either Mark Evans or Rozland McKee for the in-fighting. Whatever the truth, the voters will have a chance to replace or retain Evans and McKee in late 2025. The matter at hand is whether we elect twice-defeated Gary Burkholder to embolden Evans’ written threats or elect the only candidate that is not a known associate of Evans in the race that seeks to bring stability to the board, Trent Stepp.
The level of animosity and tension presently among the trustees is astonishing. At each meeting, Evans video records using four cameras, and sometimes a bodycam after meetings. Evans then edits the footage to make the other trustees look bad on Facebook. This may be one reason the board implemented an official live stream on YouTube to have an unedited version of the meetings for the public.
My wife, of 40 years (2 adult children and 5 grands and recent cancer survivor) Nita Hanson became the Township Administrator about 6 months ago. I married a waitress that became a paralegal for 25 years and went to Capital Law School in her 40’s while working. Before coming to Etna, she was a corporate litigator for Dinsmore in Columbus. Obviously, I am biased towards my wife. Anything good in me comes from her. She has shown remarkable restraint, calmly answering Mr. Evans’ rantings.
A quick review of meeting minutes, whether 2004 Burkholder era, or the short time (2021) when Mr. Evans was president of the board shows they both were fond of four-hour long meetings. Etna official Record of Proceedings March 25, 2004, show meeting ended at 10 min past midnight. August 3, 2004, 10:55 pm ending. One longtime resident told me when a Burkholder meeting was finally over, as Gary walked by, he heard a resident comment, “There, except for the Grace of God, goes God.”
Burkholder, if elected, would empower Evans’ threats. The Burkholder-Evans duo seems bent on filing many more lawsuits as Evans states in a publicly released email to Alan Albrecht, Gary’s neighbor. Evans says he is preparing a defamation lawsuit and he can easily add a few more names. He sued the township (cases pending) for not releasing Nita’s notes but then used the law Nita quoted to block Albrecht from getting his notes.
Nita is an excellent attorney, so I am not privy to the inner workings of Etna Township. Yet, from public information requests by other citizens and the infamous leaked messages (all over Facebook) from Mark Evans the grand plot is to get Burkholder elected so he and Evans can fire John Singleton (zoning inspector), Laura Brown (20-year clerk), and my wife Nita Hanson (administrator).
Until the political targeting of my wife by Burkholder and Evans, I was content to sit out. I have not spoken at any of the meetings and have asked my son and daughter to refrain from speaking up to defend their mother from Evans’ public attacks at the meetings. With the release of the Burkholder-Evans plans via Evans Facebook messages, attacking my wife, I felt I must comment.
This is a lot of skullduggery for a part-time, $24,000 a year job. So, it makes sense that the messages say that Gary Burkholder doesn’t really want to be a trustee. He wants to be an administrator where he has no risk of being voted out again. Evans simply needs someone to help him control the board again and get the Township to fund his lawsuits. Trent Stepp is the only candidate not connected to the Burkholder & Evans cabal. Citizens of Etna and East Reynoldsburg will decide the Evans vs McKee debate in 2025. Don’t get distracted by the sideshow vote for Trent Stepp for Etna Trustee.
Jon Hanson, Etna Township